Bosnia Entity Votes No Confidence in Govt

The new parliamentary majority in Bosnia's Federation entity has passed a vote of no confidence in the entity's government.

Elvira M. Jukic

BIRN

Sarajevo

The House of Representatives in the larger of Bosnia's two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on February 12 passed a vote of no confidence in the government.

The vote was the work of the new parliamentary majority comprising the Social Democratic Party, SDP, the Alliance for a Better Future, SBB, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZBiH, and its sister party, HDZ1990.

The coalition has been seeking to dismiss half of ministers of the entity government since May last year.

Jasenko Selimovic, of the SDP, said on Tuesday that the move was long overdue. “The current government of the Federation does not reflect the will of the parliamentary majority anymore,” Selimovic said, recalling that the majority changed last summer.

The SDP's former coalition with the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, broke up on May 31 2012, when the SDA refused to support the proposed state budget. The SDP then found itself a new partner in the SBB and in the two main Croatian parties.

SDA ministers were duly expelled from the state-level government in October but the reconstruction of the Federation government has taken longer, owing to legal procedures and the opposition of the Federation President, Zivko Budimir.

The new parliamentary majority in the Federation tried several times to dismiss the ministers from the SDA and two other parties.

Prime Minister Nermin Niksic first asked them to go, and he then asked Budimir to dismiss them. After these moves failed, the no confidence vote followed as a last attempt.

“The political platform which formed the basis of this government broke up a long time ago,” Marinko Cavara, of the HDZBiH, said.

Prime Minister Niksic, from the SDP, said the government no longer matched the will of parliament and it was time to change it.

The SDA has criticized the move.

The vote of the House of Representatives has now to be confirmed by the House of the Peoples, the second chamber in the Federation parliament.

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